At Hand
by aadarshinah
Summary: In which Anders is discovered, Tyrol reveals himself, and things are remembered. (A very, very AU BSG, in which the Final Five are the Final Four, and have always known what they are. Anders/Tyrol, Saul/Ellen)


_At Hand_

A _Battlestar Galactica_ AU

* * *

_"Surely some revelation is at hand / Surely the Second Coming is at hand."_

WB Yeats "The Second Coming"

_"We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity."_

Paolo Coelho _The Alchemist_

* * *

This is what happens when it falls apart:

The raptor from the _Demetrius_ has just landed in the starboard flight pod and even if Galen had not been on duty he would have gone down to meet it. It's been sixty days since he last saw Sam and while they've gone longer times apart before (he all but shudders at the memory of those horrific few months when he'd believed Sam to be dead - well and truly dead - following the attack on the Colonies, to say nothing of the years that had gone by before he'd found the others), but, Gods, it's always too long.

When the hatch opens, though, it isn't a bunch of tired-looking pilots wanting nothing more than a shower and a decent meal. Or, well, it is, but it's not _only_ that. It's their pair of Marine guards too, with Sam bound and shackled between them.

The hanger deck is deafening with its sudden silence.

Then Sam looks up and must see him in the crowd, because he begins to shout. "I'm sorry," he says, fighting the Marines as they try to manhandle him out of the raptor. "I couldn't let him do it- They found a Two, and I couldn't let him do that to her again. Not again. I had to- You've got to understand."

Galen does. Sam had always had a soft spot for Starbuck, said she reminded him of the Sevens.

(Sam had been particularly close to the Sevens. But then, of course, they both had. The Sevens were supposed to have been their _son_, the same way the Sixes were meant to have been the daughter Saul and Ellen had never been able to have.)

"Shut up, you frakking skinjob," Starbuck snaps, climbing out of the raptor after them. "I don't want to hear any more of your lies."

A disbelieving murmur goes around the deck. Galen ignores it. Instead he goes up to Sam - at least, gets as close as the Marines will let him; he wants to kiss him, or at the very least put his hand on his husband's shoulder, but he cannot get even that near - and promises, "It's okay. I understand. I'll take care of it. Don't worry about a thing."

Sam gives him a lopsided smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes and allows himself to be dragged away.

Galen turns to Starbuck and gives her a wry smile of his own. He holds out his hands (palms up, fingers curled inward, wrists bumping against each other) and says, "I need to go to the CIC. You can cuff me if you want, but I need to speak to Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh right away."

There's a beat then,

"You're a Cylon too."

"Yes," he says simply, because further explanations would be useless at this time, and continues to hold out his hands.

There are more murmurs, more confusion, and a great many guns pointed his way.

"Look," he continues when it becomes clear that the only move anyone is likely to make if he doesn't is to put a bullet in his head (and, while it's not the worst way to go, being Resurrected aboard one of the baseships is just about the last thing he wants at this moment), "if I'd wanted to hurt you, I've had plenty of opportunities over the last few years to do so. So you're just going to have to trust me when I say I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want to speak to Tigh and the Old Man."

This, at the very least, gets Starbuck to say something, even if it's only, "Guards! Get this thing out of my sight!"

Not exactly what he was going for, but it'll do.

* * *

This is how it begins - in this lifetime, at least:

He buys a ticket to a pyramid game. A VIP ticket, one that gets him into the locker room afterwards to meet the players. It costs more money than he has, but Galen's found Ellen and Saul by this point they lend him the cubits. Or, well, Ellen does. But, then again, she's always been a romantic. A dreamer and a romantic.

He doesn't know a thing about pyramid, at least, nothing more than he's managed picked up in the six years he's been in the Fleet - which is, incidentally, how long its been since he woke up on Gemenon, in a halfway house on the outskirts of the capitol with nothing to his name except the dim idea he might actually be a Cylon. But he knows Sam. He's been sure that this is _him_ ever since he'd first seen his picture on the front of some sports magazine one of the other deckhands had left lying around, but, if there'd been any doubts, they've been erased now.

He's still nervous as anything when it comes time to go back into the locker room. He shouldn't be. He and Sam have been together for lifetimes. (Galen's died nineteen times already; twelve of those were in Sam's arms.) There's nothing to be afraid of, and yet...

Sam sees him first, and though the room is noisy with people and equipment, he can hear his whispered, "Galen?" as clear as day.

All these years, all this planning, and the only thing Galen can think to do is duck his head a little and say, "It's me, Sam."

Sam's on his feet before Galen's head comes up; standing in front of him before his eyes have time to refocus. And then Sam's hands are on his shoulders, as if trying to prove to himself that Galen's real. "I thought..."

"So did I, until I found Saul."

"Saul's alive?"

"Ellen too."

Sam kisses him then, hard and fast, and then, touching their foreheads together, insists, "You've no idea how much I missed you," and, "You have to tell me everything I missed."

It's around then that they notice the silence that's fallen over the locker room. One of the other players - Sue-Shaun, he'll later learn - asks, "Who's your friend T?"

Sam turns around and, taking his hand, answers, "This is my Galen," as if that's the only explanation anyone needs.

* * *

This is how it begins - the very first beginning, that is:

Galen's father owns a mechanic's shop and Sam's looking for an after-school job. It's that simple.

(Actually, it's more complicated that that. Sam's father is a bastard who beats him, Sam himself is a sixteen-year-old runaway, and Galen's away half the year at university, all on top of Galen's father's failing health. But they fall in love quite simply, without dramatics, and with a steady depth that Ellen will later sigh over on their long, slow journey across the stars.)

* * *

**a/n:** This is AU. I mean really, really AU. As in, the Final Five are really the Final Four - there is no Tory - and have known they were Cylons all along. I've had the spark of the idea of rewriting the whole series that way... but over 6 months this is all that ever came of it, and so... it is my Xmas gift to you.  
(I'm still not sure whether or not this is better or worse than my gift of PopTarts to my brother.)


End file.
